Well, I know I’ve been bombarding you with new posts lately (not!), but I did get a fair amount done today. As you can tell from the title of the post, I finished the left rear spar.
More importantly, I made an investment to my health this week.
I present to you…(triumphant music)…a heater.
Ta-da!
This is a pretty sweet heater. It’s small, only cost $20, and by no means will it heat the garage, BUT, the garage is no longer (literally) freezing, and I can work in front of the workbench comfortably for a whole day. It will provide me with two heat settings and has a little fan in it. I set it in the corner of the workbench (as pictured above), and after about 5 minutes, I have to turn it down to the low setting. After about ten minutes, it is pretty comfortable where I’m standing in front of my workbench. And, now that I think about it, it does take the chill off the rest of the garage. Even for the one day I’ve really used it while I was finishing the floors, it has totally earned its cost back.
Okay, back to the airplane. I finally found my stepdrill, and made a couple holes in my W-707E.
Step-drill to the rescue. Had I planned this a little better, I would have done three smaller holes.
I clecoed W-707E back onto the rear spar and flipped it over to use the dremel to clean out the rest of the aileron pushrod hole.
I'm about to flip the spar over and use the dremel to clean up the hole.
I'm not totally done here, but you get the idea.
After that, I moved on to dimpling the reinforcement plates where I won’t be able to dimple them later.
4 #30 dimples along the left (outboard) edge, and #40 dimples along the top flange.
I also dimpled the flange of the rear spar where the reinforcement plates will go.
Then, after a little more scuffing and cleaning, I shot primer on the spar.
I love this color. Makes me happy.
And the left W-707E and W-707F.
After a couple hours inside while the primer dried, I came back out and studied the rivet callouts.
Looks like I can set 7 rivets here right now. All size "square," which is AN470AD4-8.
5 of the 7 set. Nice shop heads, huh?
I moved along the reinforcement fork, using clecos as indicators not to rivet certain holes yet.
I chose to put the shop heads on the aft side of the rivet (these are manufactured heads). I like shop heads, and it makes inspection easier.
Moving outboard, I studied the same callout for the middle reinforcement plate, or W-707E.
Looks like I can set five here, of size "upside down triangle," which are AN470AD4-4.
Manufactured heads
Shop heads.
And repeat with the outboard reinforcement plate.
6 here, I think. More upside-down triangles.
Manufactured heads.
Shop heads.
Then, I couldn’t help but grab the right spar and put them both up on the workbench.
It feels good to have both rear spars done.
Look at the difference in paint color. Left spar (just finished) is on the right.
More difference in paint color.
Anyway, all the rivets were symmetrical from right side to left side, which doesn’t mean I’m correct, it just means that if I did make any mistakes, I made them twice!
Now, all that’s left on the spars is to finish up the left tiedown. Then, I really need to make some wing stands and finish up some rib deburring.
Tonight was a good night. 56 rivets, and it feels really good to get something big put together.
Onward and upward!
Andrew's RV-7 Build Log 